Artemis Fowl (8 page)

“Good one, fairy girl.”

“I’m deadly serious, human.”

“Well, if you’re serious,” sighed Juliet, reaching a delicate finger behind her lenses to wipe away a tear, “two reasons. One, Artemis said that while you’re in a human dwelling, you have to do what we want. And I want you to stay on that cot.”

Holly closed her eyes. Right again. Where did this group get their information?

“And two.” Juliet smiled again, but this time there was a hint of her brother in those teeth. “Two, because I went through the same training as Butler, and I’ve been dying for somebody to practice my pile driver on.”

We’ll see about that, human, thought Holly. Captain Short wasn’t a hundred percent yet, and there was also the small matter of the thing digging into her ankle. She thought she knew what it could be, and if she was right, then it could be the beginnings of a plan.

Commander Root had Holly’s locator frequency keyed into his helmet face screen. It took Root longer than expected to reach Dublin. The modern wing rigs were more complicated than he was used to, plus he’d neglected to take refresher courses. At the right altitude, he could almost superimpose the luminous map on his visor over the actual Dublin streets below him. Almost.

“Foaly, you pompous centaur,” he barked into his mouthpiece.

“Problem, bossman?” came the tinny reply.

“Problem? You can say that again. When was the last time you updated the Dublin files?”

Root could hear sucking noises in his ear. It sounded as though Foaly was having lunch.

“Sorry, Commander. Just finishing off this carrot. Ahm . . . Dublin, let’s see. Seventy-five . . . Eighteen seventy-five.”

“I thought so! This place is completely different. The humans have even managed to change the shape of the coastline.”

Foaly was silent for a moment. Root could just imagine him wrestling with the problem. The centaur did not like to be told that any part of his system was out of date.

“Okay,” he said at last. “Here’s what I’m going to do. We have a Scope on a satellite TV bird with a footprint in Ireland.”

“I see,” muttered Root—which was basically a lie.

“I’m going to e-mail last week’s sweep direct to your visor. Luckily there’s a video card in all the new helmets.”

“Luckily.”

“The tricky bit will be to coordinate your flight pattern with the video feed. . . .”

Root had had enough. “How long, Foaly?”

“Ahm . . . Two minutes, give or take.”

“Give or take what?”

“About ten years if my calculations are off.”

“They’d better not be off then. I’ll hover until we know.”

One hundred and twenty-four seconds later, Root’s black-and-white blueprints faded out, to be replaced by full-color daylight imaging. When Root moved, it moved, and Holly’s locator beacon dot moved too.

“Impressive,” said Root.

“What was that, Commander?”

“I said impressive,” shouted Root. “No need to get a swelled head.”

The commander heard the sound of a roomful of laughter, and realized that Foaly had him on the speakers. Everyone had heard him complimenting the centaur’s work. There’d be no talking to him for at least a month. But it was worth it. The video he was receiving now was bang up to date. If Captain Short was being held in a building, the computer would be able to give him 3D blueprints instantaneously. It was foolproof. Except . . .

“Foaly, the beacon’s gone off shore. What’s going on?”

“Boat or ship, sir, I’d say at a guess.”

Root cursed himself for not thinking of it. They’d be having a big laugh in the situation room. Of course it was a ship. Root dropped down a few hundred feet until its shadowy outline loomed through the mist. A whaler by the looks of it. Technology may have changed over the centuries, but there was still nothing like a harpoon to slaughter the world’s largest mammal.

“Captain Short is in there somewhere, Foaly. Below decks. What can you give me?”

“Nothing, sir. It’s not a permanent fixture. By the time we’ve run down her registration, it’d be way too late.”

“What about thermal imaging?”

“No, Commander. That hull must be at least fifty years old. Very high lead content. We can’t even penetrate the first layer. I’m afraid you’re on your own.”

Root shook his head. “After all the billions we’ve poured into your department. Remind me to slash your budget when I get back.”

“Yes, sir,” came the reply, sullen for once. Foaly did not like budget jokes.

“Just have the Retrieval Squad on full alert. I may need them at a moment’s notice.”

“I will, sir.”

“You’d better. Over and out.”

Root was on his own. Truth be told, that was the way he liked it. No science. No uppity centaur whinnying in his ear. Just a fairy, his wits, and maybe a touch of magic.

Root tilted his polymer wings, hugging the underside of a fogbank. There was no need to be careful. With his shield activated, he was invisible to the human eye. Even on stealth-sensitive radar he would be no more than a barely perceptible distortion. The commander swooped low to the gunwales. It was an ugly craft, this one. The smell of death and pain lingered in the blood-swabbed decks. Many noble creatures had died here, died and been dissected for a few bars of soap and some heating oil. Root shook his head. Humans were such barbarians.

Holly’s beeper was flashing urgently now. She was close by. Very close. Somewhere within a two-hundred-foot radius was the hopefully still-breathing form of Captain Short. But without blueprints he would have to navigate the belly of this ship unaided.

Root alighted gently on the deck, his boots adhering slightly to the mixture of dried soap and blubber coating the steel surface. The craft appeared to be deserted. No sentry on the gangplank, no bosun on the bridge, not a light anywhere. Still, no reason to abandon caution. Root knew from bitter experience that humans popped up when you least expected them. Once, when he was helping the Retrieval boys scrape some pod wreckage off a tunnel wall, they were spotted by a group of potholing humans. What a mess that had been. Mass hysteria, high-speed chases, group mind wipes. The whole nine yards. Root shuddered. Nights like that could put decades on a fairy.

Keeping himself fully shielded, the commander stowed his wings in their sheath, advancing on foot across the deck. There were no other life-forms showing up on his screen but, like Foaly said, the hull had a high lead content, even the paint was lead based! The entire boat was a floating eco hazard. The point being that there could be an entire battalion of stormtroopers concealed below decks, and his helmetcam would never pick them up. Very reassuring. Even Holly’s beacon was a few shades below par, and that had a micro nuclear battery sending out the pulses. Root didn’t like this. Not one bit. Keep calm, he derided himself. You’re shielded. There’s not a human alive that can see you now.

Root hauled open the first hatch. It swung easily enough. The commander sniffed. The Mud People had greased the hinges with whale blubber. Was there no end to their depravity?

The corridor was steeped in viscous darkness, so Root flicked down his infrared filter. Okay, so sometimes technology did come in handy, but he wouldn’t be telling Foaly that. The maze of pipes and grilling before him was immediately illuminated with an unnatural red light. Minutes later, he was regretting even thinking something nice about the centaur’s technology. The infrared filter was messing with his depth perception and he’d whacked his head on two protruding U-bends so far.

Still no sign of life—human or fairy. Plenty of animal.

Mostly rodents. And when you’re just topping three feet in height yourself, a good-sized rat can be a real threat, especially since rats are one of the few breeds that can see straight through a fairy shield. Root unstrapped his blaster and set it to level three, or
medium rare,
as the elves in the locker room called it. He sent one of the rats scurrying away with a smoking behind as a warning to the rest. Nothing fatal, just enough to teach him not to look sideways at a fairy in a hurry again.

Root picked up his pace. This place was ideal for an ambush. He was virtually blind with his back to the only exit. A Recon nightmare. If one of his own men had pulled a stunt like this, he’d have their stripes for it. But desperate times required judicious risk-taking. That was the essence of command.

He ignored several doors to either side, following the beacon. Ten feet now. A steel hatch sealed the corridor, and Captain Short, or her corpse, lay on the other side of it.

Root put his shoulder to the door. It swung open without protest. Bad news. If a live creature were being held captive, the hatch would have been locked. The commander flicked the blaster’s power level to five and advanced through the hole. His weapon hummed softly. There was enough power on tap now to vaporize a bull elephant with a single blast.

No sign of Holly. No sign of anything much. He was in a refrigerated storage bay. Glittering stalactites hung from a maze of piping. Root’s breath fanned before him in icy clouds. How would that look to a human? Disembodied breathing.

“Ah,” said a familiar voice. “We have a visitor.”

Root dropped to one knee, leveling the handgun at the voice’s source.

“Come to rescue your missing officer, no doubt.”

The commander blinked a bead of sweat from his eye. Sweat? At this temperature?

“Well, I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place.”

The voice was tinny. Artificial. Amplified. Root checked his locator for life signs. There were none. Not in this chamber at any rate. He was being monitored somehow. Was there a camera here somewhere, concealed in the maze of overhead plumbing, that could penetrate the fairy shield?

“Where are you? Show yourself!”

The human chuckled. It echoed unnaturally around the vast hold.

“Oh, no. Not yet, my fairy friend. But soon enough. And believe me, when I do, you’ll wish I hadn’t.”

Root followed the voice. Keep the human talking.

“What do you want?”

“Hmm. What do I want? Again, you will know soon enough.”

There was a low crate in the center of the hold. On it sat an attaché case. The case was open.

“Why bring me here at all?”

Root poked the case with his pistol. Nothing happened.

“I brought you here for a demonstration.”

The commander leaned over the open container. Inside, in snug foam packing, were a flat vacuum-packed package and a triple-band VHF transmitter. Resting on top was Holly’s locator. Root groaned. Holly wouldn’t willingly give up her equipment; no LEP officer would.

“What sort of demonstration, you demented freak?”

Again that cold chuckle.

“A demonstration of my utter commitment to my goals.”

Root should have started to worry about his own health then, but he was too busy worrying about Holly’s.

“If you’ve harmed one tip of my officer’s pointy ears ...”

“
Your
officer? Oh, we have management. How privileged. All the better to make my point.”

Alarm bells went off in Root’s head.

“Your point?”

The voice emanating from the aluminium speaker grid was as serious as a nuclear winter.

“My point, little fairy man, is that I am not someone to be trifled with. Now, if you would please observe the package.”

The commander duly observed. It was a nondescript enough shape. Flat, like a slab of putty, or . . . Oh no.

Beneath the sealant, a red light flicked on.

“Fly, little fairy,” said the voice. “And tell your friends Artemis Fowl the Second says hello.”

Beside the red light, green symbols began to click through a routine. Root recognized them from his human studies class back in the Academy. They were . . . numbers. Going backward. A countdown!

“D’Arvit!” growled Root. (There is no point translating that word, as it would have to be censored.)

He turned and fled up the corridor, Artemis Fowl’s mocking tones carrying down the metal funnel.

“Three,” said the human. “Two . . .”

“D’Arvit,” repeated Root.

The corridor seemed much longer, now. A sliver of starry sky peeked through a wedge of open door. Root activated his wings—this would take some fancy flying. The Hummingbird’s span was barely narrower than the ship’s corridor.

“One.”

Sparks flew as the electronic wings scraped a protruding pipe. Root cartwheeled, righting himself at Mach one.

“Zero . . .” said the voice. “Boom!”

Inside the vacuum-packed package, a detonator sparked, igniting a kilogram of pure Semtex. The whitehot reaction devoured the surrounding oxygen in a nanosecond and surged down the path of least resistance, which was, of course, immediately after LEP Commander Root.

Root dropped his visor, opening the throttle to maximum. The door was just a few feet away now. It was just a matter of what reached it first—the fairy or the fireball.

He made it. Barely. He could feel the explosion rattling his torso as he threw himself into a reverse loop. Flames latched on to his jumpsuit, licking along his legs. Root continued his maneuver, crashing directly into the icy water. He broke the surface swearing.

Above him, the whaler had been totally consumed by noxious flames.

“Commander,” came a voice in his earpiece. It was Foaly. He was back in range.

“Commander. What’s your status?”

Root lifted free of the water’s grip.

“My status, Foaly, is extremely annoyed. Get on your computers. I want to know everything there is to know about one Artemis Fowl, and I want to know it before I get back to base.”

“Yessir, Commander. Right away.”

No wisecrack. Even Foaly realized that this was not the time.

Root hovered at three hundred yards. Below him the blazing whaler drew emergency vehicles like moths to a light. He dusted charred threads from his elbows. There will be a reckoning for this Artemis Fowl, he vowed. Count on it.

Artemis leaned back in the study’s leather swivel chair, smiling over steepled fingers. Perfect. That little explosion should cure those fairies of their cavalier attitude. Plus there was one less whaler in the world. Artemis Fowl did not like whalers. There were less objectionable ways to produce oil by-products.

The pinhole camera concealed in the locator had worked perfectly. With its high-resolution images he had picked out the fairy’s telltale breath crystals.

Artemis consulted the basement surveillance monitor. His captive was sitting on the cot now, head in hands. Artemis frowned. He hadn’t expected the fairy to appear so . . . human. Until now, they had merely been quarry. Animals to be hunted. But now, seeing one like this, in obvious discomfort—it changed things.

Artemis put the computer to sleep and crossed to the main doors. Time for a little chat with their guest. Just as his fingers alighted on the brass handles, the door flew open before him. Juliet appeared in the doorway, cheeks flushed from haste.

“Artemis,” she gasped. “Your mother. She . . .”

Artemis felt a lead ball drop in his stomach.

“Yes?”

“Well, she says, Artemis . . . Artemis, that your . . .”

“Yes, Juliet. For heaven’s sake, what is it?”

Juliet placed both hands over her mouth, composing herself. After several seconds she parted spangled nails, speaking through her fingers.

“It’s your father, sir. Artemis Senior. Madam Fowl says he’s come back!”

For a split second, Artemis could have sworn his heart had stopped. Father? Back? Was it possible? Of course he’d always believed his father was alive. But lately, since he’d hatched this fairy scheme, it was almost as if his father had shifted to the back of his mind. Artemis felt guilt churn his stomach. He had given up. Given up on his own father.

“Did you see him, Juliet? With your own eyes?”

The girl shook her head.

“No, Artemis, sir. I just heard voices. In the bedroom. But she won’t let me through the door. Not for anything. Not even with a hot drink.”

Artemis calculated. They had returned barely an hour ago. His father could have slipped past Juliet. It was possible. Just possible. He glanced at his watch, synchronized with Greenwich Mean Time by constantly updated radio signals. Three A.M. Time was ticking on. His entire plan depended on the fairies making their next move before daylight.

Artemis started. He was doing it again, pushing family to one side. What was he becoming? His father was the priority here, not some moneymaking scheme.

Juliet was still in the doorway, watching him with those enormous blue eyes. She was waiting for him to make a decision, as he always did. And for once, there was indecision scrawled across his pale features.

“Very well,” he mumbled eventually. “I had better go up there immediately.”

Artemis brushed past the girl, taking the steps two at a time. His mother’s room was two flights up, a converted attic space.

He hesitated at the door. What would he say if it was his father miraculously returned? What would he do? It was ridiculous dithering about it. Impossible to predict. He knocked lightly.

“Mother?”

No response, but he thought he heard a giggle and was instantly transported into the past. Initially this room had been his parents’ lounge. They would sit on the chaise longue for hours, tittering like schoolchildren, feeding the pigeons or watching the ships sailing past on Dublin sound. When Artemis Senior had disappeared, Angeline Fowl had become more and more attached to the space, eventually refusing to leave altogether.

“Mother? Are you all right?”

Muffled voices from within. Conspiratorial whispers.

“Mother. I’m coming in.”

“Wait a moment. Timmy, stop it, you beast. We have company.”

Timmy? Artemis’s heart thumped like a snare drum in his chest. Timmy, her pet name for his father. Timmy and Arty. The two men in her life. He could wait no longer. Artemis burst through the double doors.

His first impression was of light. Mother had the lamps on. A good sign surely. Artemis knew where his mother would be. He knew exactly where to look. But he couldn’t. What if . . . What if . . .

“Yes, can we help you?”

Artemis turned, his eyes still downcast. “It’s me.”

His mother laughed. Airy and carefree.

“I can see it’s you, Papa. Can’t you even give your boy one night off? It is our honeymoon after all.”

Artemis knew then. It was just an escalation of her madness. Papa? Angeline thought Artemis was his own grandfather. Dead over ten years. He raised his gaze slowly.

His mother was seated on the chaise longue, resplendent in her own wedding dress, face clumsily coated with makeup. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

Beside her was a facsimile of his father, constructed from the morning suit he’d worn on that glorious day in Christchurch Cathedral fourteen years ago. The clothes were padded with tissue, and atop the dress shirt was a stuffed pillowcase with lipstick features. It was almost funny. Artemis choked back a sob, his hopes vanishing like a summer rainbow.

“What do you say, Papa?” said Angeline in a deep bass, nodding the pillow like a ventriloquist manipulating her dummy. “One night off for your boy, eh?”

Artemis nodded. What else could he do?

“One night then. Take tomorrow, too. Be happy.”

Angeline’s face radiated honest joy. She sprang from the couch, embracing her unrecognized son.

“Thank you, Papa. Thank you.”

Artemis returned the embrace, though it felt like cheating.

“You’re welcome, Mo—Angeline. Now, I must be off. Business to attend to.”

His mother settled beside her imitation husband.

“Yes, Papa. You go, don’t worry, we can keep ourselves amused.”

Artemis left. He didn’t look back. There were things to be done. Fairies to be extorted. He had no time for his mother’s fantasy world.

Captain Holly Short was holding her head in her hands.

One hand to be precise. The other was scrabbling down the side of her boot, on the camera’s blind side. In actuality her head was crystal clear, but it would do no harm for the enemy to believe her still out of action. Perhaps they would underestimate her. And that would be the last mistake they ever made.

Holly’s fingers closed around the object that had been digging into her ankle. She knew immediately by its contours what was concealed there. The acorn! It must have slipped into her boot during all the commotion by the oak. This could be a vital development. All she needed was a small patch of earth—then her powers would be restored.

Holly glanced surreptitiously around the cell. Fresh concrete, by the looks of it. Not a single crack or flaky corner. Nowhere to bury her secret weapon. Holly stood tentatively, trying out her legs for stability. Not too bad, a bit shaky around the knees, but otherwise sound enough. She crossed to the wall, pressing her cheek and palms to the smooth surface. The concrete was fresh all right, very recent. Still damp in patches. Obviously her prison had been specially prepared.

“Looking for something?”said a voice. A cold, heartless voice.

Holly reared back from the wall. The human boy was standing not two feet from her, his eyes hidden behind mirrored glasses. He had entered the room without a sound. Extraordinary.

“Sit, please.”

Holly did not want to sit, please. What she wanted to do was incapacitate this insolent pup with her elbow and use his miserable hide for leverage. Artemis could see it in her eyes. It amused him.

“Getting ideas, are we, Captain Short?”

Holly bared her teeth, it was answer enough.

“We are both fully aware of the rules here, Captain. This is my house. You must abide by my wishes. Your laws, not mine. Obviously my wishes do not include bodily harm to myself, or your attempting to leave this house.”

It hit Holly then.

“How do you know my—”

“Your name? Your rank?”Artemis smiled, though there was no joy in it. “If you wear a name tag . . .”

Holly’s hand unconsciously covered the silver tag on her suit.

“But that’s written in—”

“Gnommish. I know. I happen to be fluent. As is everyone in my network.”

Holly was silent for a moment, processing this momentous revelation.

“Fowl,” she said with feeling. “You have no idea what you’ve done. Bringing the worlds together like this could mean disaster for us all.”

Artemis shrugged. “I am not concerned with
us all
, just myself. And believe me, I shall be perfectly fine. Now, sit, please.”

Holly sat, never taking her hazel eyes from the diminutive monster before her.

“So what is this master plan, Fowl? Let me guess— world domination?”

“Nothing so melodramatic,” chuckled Artemis.“Just riches.”

“A thief!” spat Holly. “You’re just a thief!”

Annoyance flashed across Artemis’s features, only to be replaced by his customary sardonic grin.

“Yes. A thief if you like. Hardly
just
a thief, though. The world’s first cross-species thief.”

Captain Short snorted. “First cross-species thief! Mud People have been stealing from us for millennia. Why do you think we live underground?”

“True. But I will be first to successfully separate a fairy from its gold.”

“Gold? Gold? Human idiot. You don’t honestly believe that crock-of-gold nonsense. Some things aren’t true, you know.” Holly threw her head back and laughed.

Artemis checked his nails patiently, waiting for her to finish. When the gales had finally subsided, he shook his index finger.

“You are right to laugh, Captain Short. For a while there, I did believe in all that under-the-rainbow crock-of-gold blarney, but now I know better. Now I know about the hostage fund.”

Holly struggled to keep her face under control.

“What hostage fund?”

“Oh, come now, Captain. Why bother with the charade? You told me about it yourself.”

“I—I told you!” stammered Holly. “Ridiculous!”

“Look at your arm.”

Holly rolled up her right sleeve. There was a small cotton pad taped to the vein.

“That’s where we administered the sodium pentathol. Commonly known as truth serum. You sang like a bird.”

Holly knew it was true. How else could he know?

“You’re crazy!”

Artemis nodded indulgently. “If I win, I’m a prodigy. If I lose, then I’m crazy. That’s the way history is written.”

Of course, there had been no sodium pentathol, just a harmless prick with a sterilized needle. Artemis would not risk causing brain damage to his meal ticket, nor could he afford to reveal the Book as the source of his information. Better to let the hostage believe that she had betrayed her own people. It would lower her morale, making her more susceptible to his mind games. Still, the ruse disturbed him. It was undeniably cruel. How far was he prepared to go for this gold? He didn’t know, and wouldn’t until the time came.

Holly slumped, momentarily defeated by this latest development. She had talked. Revealed sacred secrets. Even if she did manage to escape, she would be banished to some freezing tunnel under the Arctic Circle.

“This isn’t over, Fowl,” she said at last. “We have powers you can’t possibly know about. It would take days to describe them all.”

The infuriating boy laughed again. “How long do you think you’ve been here?”

Holly groaned; she knew what was coming. “A few hours?”

Artemis shook his head. “Three days,” he lied. “We’ve had you on a drip for over sixty hours . . . until you told us everything we needed to know.”

Even as the words came out, Artemis felt guilty. These mind games were having an obvious effect on Holly, destroying her from the inside out. Was there really a need for this?

“Three days? You could have killed me. What kind of ...”

And it was that speechless quality that sent the doubt shooting through Artemis’s brain. The fairy thought him so evil, she couldn’t even find the words.

Holly pulled herself together.

“Well then, Master Fowl,” she spat, heavy on the contempt, “if you know so much about us, then you know what happens when they locate me.”

Artemis nodded absently. “Oh yes, I know. In fact, I’m counting on it.”

It was Holly’s turn to grin.

“Oh really. Tell me, boy, have you ever met a troll?”

For the first time, the human’s confidence dropped a notch.

“No. Never a troll.”

Holly showed more teeth.

“You will, Fowl. You will. And I hope I’m there to see it.”

The LEP had established a surface Ops HQ at E1: Tara.

“Well?” said Root, slapping at a paramedic gremlin who was applying burn salve to his forehead. “Leave it. The magic will sort me out soon enough.”

“Well, what?” replied Foaly.

“Don’t give me any of your lip today, Foaly, because today is not one of those Oh-I’m-so-impressed-with-the-pony’s-technology days. Tell me what you found on the human.”

Foaly scowled, securing his foil hat between curled horns. He flipped the top on a wafer-thin laptop.

“I hacked into Interpol. Not too difficult, I can tell you. They might as well have put out a welcome mat. . . .”

Root drummed his fingers on the conference table. “Get on with it.”

“Right. Fowl. Ten-gigabyte file. In paper terms, that’s half a library.”

The commander whistled. “That’s one busy human.”

“Family,” corrected Foaly. “The Fowls have been subverting justice for generations. Racketeering, smuggling, armed robbery. Mostly corporate crime last century.”

“So do we have a location?”

“That was the easy part. Fowl Manor. On a two-hundred-acre estate on the outskirts of Dublin. Fowl Manor is only about twenty klicks from our current location.”

Root chewed his bottom lip.

“Only twenty? That means we could make it before first light.”

“Yep. Sort out this whole mess before it gets out of hand in the rays of the sun.”

The commander nodded. This was their first break. Fairies had not operated in natural light for centuries. Even when they had lived above ground, they were essentially night creatures. The sun diluted their magic like bleaching a photograph. If they had to wait another day before sending in a strike force, who knew what damage Fowl could achieve?